TAG Sellers…..
Adam Wrote
People come on here and sell their wares and services and good ole Tony pays the bills and they are getting a free ride and often are competing directly against Tony and getting a free ride on his dime and they are only really here to make a few quick bucks.
Something is going to have to change around here.
This is becoming a more serious issue everyday.
Its becoming a little more personal to me every time the billing cycle comes up and I have to pay for others free advertising.
We are all so proud of our TAG and it will be here for a long time, but some changes will be made.
Thanks Tony
All Replies
I logged in today and I saw a can with the lid open. I looked inside and saw it was full of worms.
You’re a bad man steve 🙂
How much does a site like this cost per month? just curious
I could see where paying vendors would want their services advertised.
Powerstrokenation did that and charged a $500 yearly fee to sell diesel performance parts and services you could buy a quarter year or half ect…
I am an ex engineer who has been in corporate management for some time now I have a small machine shop and the only time I get to “play” engineer is when I make different things in my shop.
The Soprano’s response got me thinking, and I have to disagree with its implication:
I can’t see how anyone would try servicing this niche market for real profit. There just not that much cash in it. Tony might do OK, but he is the biggest fish in the pond here and rightfully should do so.
That being said, I don’t think money is the issue here as some folks have mentioned.
Most of the good folks here service this hobby to either help out fellow enthusiast or just have fun making low volume runs of items allot of us want. It gives their creativity value which brings them some kind of fulfillment.
I can see folks like Eric, Wok, etc servicing the hobby for their enjoyment. They do it very well. But realistically how much moola are we talking about here? Not much I expect, a few grand here or there. Now if you guys are clearing $400K a year then I am starting an AF accessories business 🙂
I think Woks point and Tonys point is in regards to protecting the membership from lower than worm shit, scum bag, and fly by night merchants.
Then again I could be full of shit. Very likely.
TB
That is true.
Also it is a matter of respecting the work of members here and who have put in a lot of effort in coming up with original ideas and work.
For example I can make shrouds, tune guns and do everything Tony does. And Tony can make Wokbutts and trigger guards and grip adapters etc. But we do not copy each other out of respect and the spirit of the brotherhood here.
We love original ideas and work but to look at the work of another and copy it to make a couple of bucks does nothing but cause problems.
There are plenty of places people can sell their goods but when you come into our house some respect needs to be shown.
We want to help protect the members from “Drive By” shady vendors and also want to promote original ideas and a safe place for people to display and sell them. If copy cats are allowed then that just discourages originators from developing original ideas and work.
Well said! I love this place
That would cost more than the work and now Tony or whomever certifies the vendor is then liable for the bad work and would have to replace it at their cost… If I buy a certified used car from Toyota I don’t get jack for a warranty, even if I buy a NEW car I don’t get jack for a warranty and THEY produced the fucking vehicle…
What you propose doesn’t exist in any real protective way, it exists as a sales scam, just try to get you $$ back from Toyota and you’ll learn pretty quickly the “Toyota Certified” stamp is a BS scam to boost the bottom line… This system would also take up lots of Tony’s time which would create longer wait times on tunes and less income…
I think this new limitation proposition may create more ill will than it solves… Some thoughts from the uber-critical part of me… Please don’t take these the wrong way… 😉
I see Tony with a huge banner across the front page of this site, I don’t see ANY other vendor advertised like that. Which is fine as everything sits right now, but if people have to pay a fee then they will want some type of equal advertising footing on this site. IF TT is taking a hit then would he not take an additional hit if more advertising was required for other vendors, or would the vendors pay to have things appear just as they are now?
How much does this site really cost to maintain? $20 a month, $50? I’d be willing to donate some $$ towards the operation of this site. I donate to other site I visit less!
The thing that makes this site so awesome is it’s Wild West like operating system. I fear losing the awesomeness of this site but I also see the need for changes.
So my only real suggestion is that maybe the new rules get proposed for review so there can be some feedback and not just backlash? Most sites just lay down the new rules, forum feel be damned and I have seen a few sites change drastically because of this.
What happened to DYODD on tunes and purchases? Buyer beware? If this is about protecting folks I don’t see any real effective way of doing it…
Is TAG getting soft in it’s learned years? 😆 😆 😆
Okayas is going to have a field day!! 😆 😆 😆
i believe wok stated befor
use the yellow’s boi as it has members from all over the airgunning world on it already
any deal ive made weather here nor there get posted in the boi
Ok enough Soprano pics .. or we’ll have to charge you a bandwidth fee 😆
With my fathers side of the family being filled with Italians I had to step in here lol.
Usually in the form of a question; the standard Italian form should be “capisci” (second person, informal) or “capisce” (third person, formal)
In the American form the last vowel is dropped, but in Italian all vowels are pronounced.
damm it , I can say it , I never said I could spell it !! 😀
Also the english version is “Capice”
Demand for agreement, implying the other party should proceed as told, whether they agree to terms or not.
There’s a few things I Want you to take care for me. What should I call them; problems! I Want you to make them disappear, if you get what I mean, capice!
Just had to get that in there and funny shit hold over 🙂 the WOP in me couldn’t resist having some fun.
thanks pisan,glad someone here liked it 😛
I can understand tony not wanting to foot the bill for others to make money and if someone had come in my pizzeria handing out coupons for their pizzeria I’d have to show em the gun.
It probably wasn’t a big deal in the beginning and now there are enough others offering similar services which may be cutting into his money which is a big deal. I doubt it’s an issue of having to fix other peoples problems as it’s an issue of $$$ which is what everything in life comes down to no matter what.
I’ll just shutup and eat my calamarei (dont know if I spelled it right lol)
LOL!! glad you took it the right way as playful poking lol I started to thinking (big trouble for me and everyone else) and thought I hope that didn’t come accross as me being one of those correct peoples english types 🙂
Does this forum have a BOI yet?
If it’s about the safety of the TAG members then how about requiring some sort of verification process before being allowed to post custom air gun products for sale (custom barrels, hammers, ammo, etc…). If it’s about money I think Tony is the top dog so he gets most the business ( as he should ) which keeps him busy which means long waits. I think that has caused the influx of comparable products being sold here by others (plus just general competition). How about Tony franchises out to those people and that way everyone could be happy. I like the sound of a certified Talon Tunes technician. But if we want free trade going on then Tony should charge a fee to selling products say over a $50. This should be able to take care of web hosting costs. Gotta pay rent and if people are sleeping on the couch for more than a night or two they should kick in somehow.
We want innovation not imitation.
Bravo !
When I started “designing” my own stocks for the Talons the last thing I wanted was to copy what had been done before. It’s just not right in my mind.
I can only make 1 or 2 stocks a month and have no ability to increase production. What little profit I get from my stocks I put back into airgunning and then some. WOK butts, trigger guards, trigger shoes, barrels and Mods are custom items that I purchase via this site.
If I had to pay a reasonable “vendor fee” to support this site and allow me to sell a stock here and there I would be all for it 🙂
on imitation & intellectual property…
there are really only a certain number of ways to skin particular cats…
good example are hammers or to a extant, cocking knobs
when it gets down to the nitty gritty most of these bits started out as the Intellectual property of Airforce
in at least my opinion those shouldn’t be an issue
That said I have seen the occasional knock off WOK butt offered but I don’t see any economy in the clones, asking price is basically the same & nearly all of us want the real goods from you.
Your butts are a target as they are fairly easy to knock off when compared to your adapters & trigger guards. I would just nuke the offenders & give them a time out.
With my fathers side of the family being filled with Italians I had to step in here lol.
Usually in the form of a question; the standard Italian form should be “capisci” (second person, informal) or “capisce” (third person, formal)
In the American form the last vowel is dropped, but in Italian all vowels are pronounced.
damm it , I can say it , I never said I could spell it !! 😀
Also the english version is “Capice”
Demand for agreement, implying the other party should proceed as told, whether they agree to terms or not.
There’s a few things I Want you to take care for me. What should I call them; problems! I Want you to make them disappear, if you get what I mean, capice!
Just had to get that in there and funny shit hold over 🙂 the WOP in me couldn’t resist having some fun.
thanks pisan,glad someone here liked it 😛
I can understand tony not wanting to foot the bill for others to make money and if someone had come in my pizzeria handing out coupons for their pizzeria I’d have to show em the gun.
It probably wasn’t a big deal in the beginning and now there are enough others offering similar services which may be cutting into his money which is a big deal. I doubt it’s an issue of having to fix other peoples problems as it’s an issue of $$$ which is what everything in life comes down to no matter what.[quote]
But Hey maybe Im wrong I dunno, thats kinda of how I took it. I just thought the Soprano thing was kind of a funny way to get the point across.:wink:
I’ll just shutup and eat my calamarei (dont know if I spelled it right lol)
River,
You are correct. We are going to try to get a handle on it before it really gets bad.
We want innovation not imitation.
Well WOK I agree however the line needs to be tempered to negate suppressing innovation & that’s what I see here…tremendous innovation in perfecting what is tremendous platform.
A few points…
first the internet has been a great boon
that said it has problems
first are the shady vendors but nearly as bad are those customers who expect everything yesterday. People that are making these bits for the general AG community as a rule have full time employment outside the industry. Truth be told most of them are really just over the break even point at the price point they are offerring their wares at once you factor in what their time is worth even at minimum wage. Don’t believe me? Contrast the price on custom AG parts with that of custom powder burner parts.
What may work is a restriction on the ability to sell until one has made say twenty posts/responses on the forums. That is a mechanism used on a few powder burner forums and cuts down on the fly by nighters a great deal.
Another may be to set up your good guys list more like that of the Yellow where its easily searchable than restrict good apples/bad apples posts to just that section as Steve does.
One thing you guys really shouldn’t do is anything that will result in the stifling of innovation
I have custom bits from a number of the guys here…its a good crew & I really don’t see this as a case of something being outright broken, maybe just in need of a slight tune up to deal with the handful of scammers that hit every forum on the internet.
just my opinion of course…
Well said Wok. I was unaware of people’s ideas getting ripped off.
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Agreed.